Targeting Breast Cancer: Encapsulation and In-vitro Studies of α-Amyrin from Capparis zeylanica L.

Abstract

Historically, Capparis zeylanica L. has garnered attention for its potential effectiveness in treating cancer. This has inspired the researchers to delve into the plant’s properties in search of new and innovative compounds with anticancer properties. Therefore, the current study aimed to encapsulate and characterize α-amyrin phytochemical from leaf extract of C. zeylanica L. and study it for the in-vitro cancer cell line. The high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method development of C. zeylanica L. extracts furnished α-amyrin, whose characterization was established by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS). Molecular docking was performed using Auto Dock Vina software to validate the mechanism of action. The α-amyrin nanosponges was synthesized through the emulsion solvent diffusion method, employing various drug-polymer ratios ranging from 1:1 to 1:5, with pullulan as the chosen polymer. Compatibility was revealed no interaction using FTIR. The cytotoxic properties were assessed on MCF-7 cell lines using MTT assay. The production yield and entrapment efficiency of F1-F5 batches in the range of 43 to 68.36% and 70 to 82.5%, respectively. Batch F5 showed the highest production yield, and entrapment efficiency. The average particle size ranges from 241.3 to 603.2 nm. The F5 formulation had shown the highest drug release (90.40 ± 0.88%). The IC50 value for optimized formulation was 34.54 μg/mL as observed in MCF-7 breast cancer, which was considerable as compared with 5-fluorouracil. In-silico studies revealed that α-amyrin showed good binding affinity to breast cancer PDBIDs and form a stable complex. In our study, α-amyrin has been successfully extracted and further validation through pharmaceutical formulation was done and warranted to solidify its potential as an effective anticancer agent.